Page 4
Thursday, July 18, 1968
Lin Davis
uJl ttlar Ifl
Th Uniersitw o North Carolina Summer Weekly
g WILLIAM A. RUSSO. Editor
. WILLIAM MIGNIUOLO, Business Manager'
REBEL GOOD, Managing Editor
.riot bummer
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gfo Slar ffrrl
Long,
P.O. To Change
The Post Office has done it again.
Announcements have been made that they are considering a halt
to Saturday mail delivery. The action is seen as an attempt to force
Congress to increase the Department's appropriations for the coming
year.
However there is the possibility that it will give new impetus to
the proposal of the President's Commission on Postal
Reorganization. This proposal is in favor of converting the Post
Office to a nonprofit government corporation similiar to the
government corporation for the control of space satellite
communications.
Such a plan would remove the Post Office from political
patronage, allow them to raise money for expenditures without
congressional appropriation and set postal rates subject only to
congressional veto.
There is also an attempt being made to change the Department to
a private enterprise corporation in the communications field similar
to I.T. & T. Under this proposal the new corporation would be
subject to the monopoly regulation governing I.T. & T. The FCC
would have final decision powers to prevent excess rate charges.
It is a shame that the political considerations of this year may
keep Congress from giving these proposals the attention they
deserve.
It is obvious that the Post Office has not been able to maintain
the kind of public service that is necessary in a country that depends
so much on its communication media.
The rate increases and the drop in postal service 12 deliveries a
week to the possibility of five a week are ample evidence of their
failure to meet our updated requirements.
We feel that removing the Post Office from the tangles of
government and placing it in a competitive position that requires
efficiency in their operations will go a long way towards improving
U.S. postal service.
Wild Weekend?
Free billiards for couples . . .free juke box in the Rendevous
Room . . .Friday and Saturday nights . . .well, its going to be one of
those lively and wild weekend summer sessions again.
At least the monotony of GM weekend social calendar is broken
by the scheduling of classes for Saturday.
Do, indeed, "check the parking lots" as Mr. Henry, director of
Graham Memorial, suggested. On the weekends they are as barren as
the proverbial Sarah.
The question arises however on the cause-effect relationship. Do
we have a limited social offering this summer because the students
leave for the weekend or are the students fleeing the campus because
of the lack of activities?
There is only one way to find the answer to this question; namely
to offer the students a choice betweeen the beach or home and a
Carolina social calendar. This would also go a long way towards
providing for the many UNC students who are without cars or
transportation and who have no choice but to stay in Chapel Hill
over the weekend.
Mr. Henry stated in his interview with the Tar Heel that if the
students voiced their complaints to his office in GM, he would see
what could be done towards improving the weekend programs.
We feel that this is an obligation owed to the Carolina summer
students; they deserve a chance to stay on the campus and on the
weekends, at least, have the chance for some entertainment other
than billiards.
We also hope that the UNC students agree with us-and voice that
agreement with a hearty response to Mr. Henry. In other words, send
letters, telegrams and calls to the GM office.
In the meantime, just rack that eight ball
"FATHER SAYS IF YOU' RE ONLY
MAKING $3200 A YEAR, l M TOO
YOUNG TO MARRY! " '
The cities are here. The long,
hot summer is also here. When
the two merge, violence is
almost certain to take hold,
especially given the political
rudiments of summer, 1968.
In the long, hot summer of
1967, about fifty incidents of
civil disorder occurred
throughout the country. Total
fatalities reached eighty, with
about 3,000 injuries and more
than 7,000 arrests. Property
damage was estimated at
$750,000,000.
When and how did such a
destructive element seize roots
in the United States? Violence,
itself, began in the summer of
1964 when the strain on
overcrowded and blighted
American cities erupted in
something more ominous than
rising crime rates and relief rolls.
That year's ghetto riots were the,
first of the "long, hot summers."
In 1965, the major eruption
occurred in the Negro
community of Watts, Los'
Angeles. Thirty-four lives were
lost and property damage
totaled $50,000,000. In 1966,
there were thirty minor
disturbances across the country.
But all this was just a prelude
to the long, hot summer of
1967. The "summer" began
early, with Negro-police clashes
and vandalism in Chicago,
Boston, Cincinnati, buffalo,
Hartford, and Waterloo, Iowa.
Then, on July 12, a group of
Negroes gathered at the fourth
police precinct in Newark, New
Jersey, to protest the alleged
beating of a Negro taxi driver.
Tempers flared and the worse
racial urban outbreak since
Watts was underway. Focus of
the disturbance was the
rundown, teeming Central Ward,
home of the most
underprivileged of Newark's
200,000 Negroes (half the city's
population).
Next, on July 23, police in
Detroit broke up a gathering in a
"blind pig" (an illegal drinking
and gambling dive), arresting
seventy-three persons. A
protesting crowd gathered on
Twelfth Street in Detroit's West
Side. A firebomb (Molotov
cocktail) and several rocks
landed near police, and a melee
began and spread.
The riots-as Washington and
local officials quickly pointed
out were not expressions of
Negro demands for civil rights.
And Negro leaders, themselves,
joined in the condemnation of
the riots as lawless hoodlumism.
Interestingly enough, many of
those conspicuous in the riots
were known criminals, and more
than 300 of the rioters arrested
in Detroit had previous criminal
records. But the Federal Bureau
of Investigation could find no
evidence of organized political
incitement.
The 1967 riots had curiously
mixed causes. In some cases,
such as Newark's Central
Ward-long a camp for the poor
from the South and other
areas-squalid housing was a
prime and clear cause. Poor
housing, heavy unemployment,
and resentment over racial slums
were prime causes of disorder in
other areas such as New York's
Puerto Rican East Harlem, also.
In other riot scepes,
conditions were much better-as
in Detroit, a high-wage town
with many well-off Negroes and
many opportunities fro all
non-whites-and the causes are
harder to identify. Many of
Detroit's underprivileged looked
resentfully at those Negroes who
had successfully escaped and
whose middle-class homes were
visible from the slum areas. New
Haven was described as the place
"where enough is not enough."
As for the long, hot summer
of 1968, four factors should
draw our attention.
(1) Although slum
discomforts are being attacked
in cities across the nation, it will
be decades before
"pressure-cooker tenements," a
primary cause of previous riots,
are replaced by clean, airy
dwellings.
(2) Usually riots do not
happen twice in the same place.
Riots which destroy Negroes'
own facilities gain nothing and
soon convince the community to
put the pressure on disruptive
elements. Also, riot-experienced
police learn from past disorders
how to improve community
Bob Hunter
Demagogue '68
Unlike the other major
candidates, Wallace is not
concentrating on August
conventions. Instead the former
Golden Glover is planning a
knock-out punch for December
(not November as many
Americans seem to think). Come
December the Alabama White
Knight will cleanse the
candidates in the Electoral
College. At least that is the way
things look for coming election.
Wallace is a demagogue, a
man of the people. Like many of
the firebrands and the populists
he advocates social programs to
improve the lot of all common
men. He is opposed to the
individualistic concern of the
conservative and is appalled at
the humanistic nature of the
white liberal. In this effort he is
not unlike Tom Watson of
Georgia at the turn of the
century.
The man behind Wallace's
strategy is the blue collar
worker. According to a recent
Harris survey, he is the
non-professional, high school if
educated worker. The support is
Protestant and is found in the
Deep South, sections of the
upper South and among the
cities in the North. It is these
people that make up the 15 to
20 of the national vote that
Wallace will base his support on.
Let's suppose that Nixon or
Reagan will run on the GOP
ticket this fall. In that case,
Wallace could carry Georgia,
Mississippi, Louisa na, Alabama,
and would run a very good race
in Arkansas, Tennessee, South
Carolina, North Carolina, and
possibly Virginia. A combination
here might take about 40 to 90
electoral votes away from the
Republicans, which is enough to
throw the election into the
House or give the South to
relations and pfevent future
riots.
(3) Education and experience
are showing more
underprivileged Negroes and
other minorities that their rising
expectations can, with training,
be fulfilled.
(4) But the long, hot summer
of 1968 will perhaps be much
more inflamed than previous
summers because of three
political happenings. First, the
recent assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., may
have proven to be, in itself, all
the emotional impact initiators
of violence needed. But the
subsequent insane assassination
of presidential hopeful, Robert
Kennedy (pinned by some as the
only candidate who could unite
black and white), served to
shatter what little remnant of
hope was left to the Negro. And
third, the presidential
conventions-both the
Republican and the
Democratic will certainly give
Negroes a more realistic chance
for political suasion, a chance
which they will very likely
exploit to its fullest potential.
Humphrey.
If Rocky is nominated, the
South belongs to either Hubert
or Wallace anyway. When one
realizes that Wallace votes will
probably keep conservatives in
the Democratic party in the
South, then prospects for the
election of any Republican by
Southern electoral votes seem
slim.
Now if Hubert Humphrey is
the Democratic nominee running
against Rocky, Rocky would
clearly beat Humphrey up
North. Down South what few
liberal votes there are would go
to Rocky, harden Democrats to
Humphrey, and the rest to
Wallace. Add this to the labor
vote Wallace might receive in the
cities and a tidy sum of electoral
votes is taken away from HHH.
The fight for the Presidency in
this instance would probably be
shifted to the plains states and
the far west. Here would come
the battle for the farm votes.
At any rate, when the
electoral college meets in
December to elect the President,
they may actually do just that,
which is something they haven't
done for about 170 years. If
they fail, then Wallace will make
a "convenant" with one of the
two major candidates.
In the Senate, a Democrat
would be selected as
Vice-President, but in the House
a Republican-Democratic battle
would shape up.
This year has already been
one for the books. Even Allen
Drury in all of his wildest fiction
could not begin to predict the
end to 1968. The man from
Alabama, Mr. Golden Gloves
Wallace, will be able to put the
finishing touches on the
election. And for a country with
a glass jaw, that is not a very
appealing outlook.1 ' "